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Thursday, May 23, 2013

This week was the last week of school and is my last week at Welborn in KCK. I am sad to leave many things, but very excited for a new opportunity. I'm also happy to say there are only 2 days (well, 1 now!) days of school left before summer break!

Balloons

I did this last year and did it again this year. I originally started with about 15 balloons counting down school. In each balloon is a slip of paper with an activity that the class gets to do the next day if we have a good day. Today's balloon was to have a "slumber party" in the classroom. I have students bring blankets and pillows and we spend the entire day on the floor for our last day festivities. The students really loved it last year and I'm sure they will again this year! (The last balloon has my age in it because for some reason this class is incredibly interested in how old I am!)

Sunglasses Project

I'd seen the sunglasses with lines on TpT (It does cost money, but this is the link!) so I broke down and spent the $2.50 for the template, bought some big poster paper and let the kids' imaginations run wild!

In the glasses they had to write 2 paragraphs about what they are doing or would like to do this summer. Then they were to draw themselves doing something they mentioned in their paragraphs.

These are only a couple of them, but they are turned out really great and I think the families are going to be excited to see these too!

Keepsake books

Many of my students didn't get yearbooks so each year I do keepsake books where they write about their friends and their favorites. I posted the link for it on my post last year if you're interested!

Thursday, May 16, 2013

Before I showcase my end of the year activities-- I'm saving all of those for my next post-- I wanted to show some of the wrap up things I've done this year to help the students review and help me reflect for next year.

With that in mind, I would also like to share that next school year I will be teaching 2nd grade at Harmony Elementary in the Blue Valley District! I'm very excited for the opportunity and can't wait to get started!

Anchor Charts for Review

I wanted to find a fun way to practice measuring and text features while meeting standards. For math, I posted different strips around the room and they met the Core Standard where they have to use different items to measure the same thing and then compare.

For text features, they had to find that text feature in the book (Life in a Garden) and explain its usefulness.

Testing Update

We just finished our Math MAP testing 1 1/2 weeks ago and 80% of the class met their improvement goal! That was the highest in the school and 35% higher than the district goal! So proud of the class-- they've worked so hard!

I'm wrapping up the Fountas and Pinnel testing now and it looks as though almost every student has improved by several letters!

Student Reflections

I wanted to try out this foldable this year to have the students reflect on their year and to help me see what stands out to them this year and to see what things they feel they need to keep working on or what they want to learn more about.

Most students expressed that they wanted to learn more about science and multiplication and the other answers for what they learned and are working on gave me a chance to really see how much they've grown and learned this year--very proud!